Incidentally, can one imagine the firestorm if Mitch McConnell, GOP leader, was reported to have called members of the Republican National Committee and told them all the candidates for party chair were acceptable, except for Ken Blackwell of Ohio and Michael Steele of Maryland, the two African-Americans?
McConnell would suffer the fate of Trent Lott, the GOP leader who in 2002 had to resign his post over a toast to 100-year-old Strom Thurmond. Lott observed that Strom had run for president on the Dixiecrat ticket in 1948, that Mississippi had voted for him and that, had Strom been elected, we might not have all these problems.
Lott was maliciously accused of endorsing the segregationist stand Strom had run on, 54 years before, though Lott never voted for segregation, and Strom's voting record had been consistent for decades with that of other Southern conservatives.
Al Gore, whose father, Sen. Albert Gore Sr., stood beside Strom and voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, called Lott's remarks racist and urged his censure by the Senate.
Let us see if the media, and his colleagues, are as tough on Reid as they were on Lott.
